In this paper we examine some proposals to disprove the hypothesis that the interaction between mind and matter causes the collapse of the wave function, showing that such proposals are fundamentally flawed. We then describe a general experimental setup retaining the key features of the ones examined, and show that even a more general case is inadequate to disprove the mind-matter collapse hypothesis. Finally, we use our setup provided to argue that, under some reasonable assumptions about consciousness, such hypothesis is (...) unfalsifiable. (shrink)

Resumo: A partir da caracterização sumária das figuras da liberdade, da angústia e da responsabilidade, expostas em L'être et le néant de Jean-Paul Sartre, o artigo pretende lançar luzes sobre a afirmação da falta de fundamento dos valores adotados em nossa moralidade cotidiana - o que implica em explicitar uma certa ressonância ética da negação na filosofia sartreana, bem como a conseqüente tentação do humano à falsificação existencial, que se manifesta em sua tentativa de elidir a angústia proveniente da liberdade (...) absoluta da realidade humana.Palavras-chave: liberdade - angústia - responsabilidade - valores.: From the brief characterization of the figures of freedom, anguish and responsability, exposed in Jean Paul Sartre's L'être et le néant, this article aims to shed lights over the statement of the lack of foundation of the values adopted in our quotidian morality - that demans an explication of a certain ethical ressonance of the negation on the sartrean philosophy, as well the consequential human temptation to the existencial forgery, which manifests in its attempt to elide the anguish coming from the absolut freedom of the human reality.Key-words: freedom - anguish - responsability - values. (shrink)

Within the history of western philosophy, there have been a number of classic ways of arguing for the existence of God. The most important of these are the teleological argument, the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, and a loose family of pragmatic considerations affirming the prudence or desirability of theistic belief. Demonstrating the weaknesses of these approaches is crucial for establishing the ‘negative’ case for atheism. This essay begins by defining what it is that philosophers normally means (...) by ‘God’—i.e., what it is that the classic arguments in the philosophy of religion are arguing about. It then outlines and critiques each main approach in turn, focusing primarily on its most classic and influential expressions within the western philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Scientific thought and its burdens is a book to search for the ways in which science has been understood in history and the way we conceive it today. It argues that every human phenomenon has certain mental frameworks through which it is manifested. Then it raises the question: through which mental frameworks is science manifested? First of all, science is a cognitive activity and as such it is an attempt to acquire knowledge of certain objects or phenomena around us. In (...) that case, it must have an epistemological framework, which is developed in this book as the epistemology of science; then, it is an activity carried out by a community of scholars and their students in an uninterrupted chain of tradition. This gives us the sociological framework. Based on these fundamental frameworks, i.e. the cognitive and sociological approach, the concept of science is defined. Due to the lack of a satisfactory epistemological and sociological framework, taken together, many crucial concepts, such as scientific process, scientific consciousness and worldview, concerning the rise and development of science within a civilization has not adequately been explained. This book thus brings a fresh understanding of sociological concepts concerning science, such as scientific community and tradition. Sufficient material is brought in from the history of science unfolding itself within three civilizations; Greek, Islamic and Western, in order to vindicate the framework in which scientific thought in these communities emerged. (shrink)

Aristoteles’in Peri Hermêneias’ta olumlama ve olumsuzlama arasında ortaya attığı öncelik ve sonralık ilişkisinin mantık açısından yükleme ve hüküm bağlamında birtakım önemli sonuçları olmuştur. Mantıksal bakımdan karşımıza çıkan problem olumlama, yani bir şeyi bir başka şey hakkında öne sürme ile olumsuzlamanın, yani bir şeyi başka bir şeyden ayırarak öne sürmenin söz olmak bakımından aynı statüde olup olmadıklarına ilişkindir. İbn Sînâ, eş-Şifâ külliyatının Peri Hermêneias’a karşılık gelen eseri olan, el-İbâre’nin birinci makalesinin beşinci faslında (el-İbâre, I.5) olumlama ve olumsuzlamayı bu mantıksal sorun bakımından (...) ele alır ve konuya dair kendi pozisyonunu nispet ve hüküm ayrımı üzerinden ortaya koyar. Ne var ki eş-Şeyh’ur-Reîs’in metni bazı açılardan okuyucu için kapalı bir görünüm arz etmektedir. Bu kapalılığın sebebi İbn Sînâ’nın metninin arka planında Helenistik şarihler arasında cereyan eden bir tartışmanın yatmasıdır. Bu makale el-İbâre’nin mevzubahis pasajlarındaki mantıksal problemi daha iyi anlamak için mevzubahis metni Helenistik şarihlerle birlikte okumayı teklif etmektedir. Bu okumada başvuracağımız kaynak, Peri Hermêneias’a Latince şerh yazmış olan Boethius’tur. Çalışmamızda Boethius’un şerhinin ilgili bölümünde, fikirlerini aktardığı Helenistik şarihlerin (Aphrodisiaslı İskender, Porphyrios ve Syrianos) pozisyonlarının İbn Sînâ’nın olumlama ve olumsuzlamaya dair savunduğu ve eleştirdiği görüşlerle örtüştüğünü ortaya koymaya çalışacağız. Bu bakımdan makaledeki okumamız, bir yandan İbn Sînâ’nın ilgili metnini ve bu metindeki mantıksal sonuçları, diğer yandan filozofun Helenistik şarihlerle ilişkisinin boyutlarını daha iyi anlamayı amaçlamaktadır. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Non-Appearance of the Phoenix at Tacitus Annals 6.28Elizabeth KeitelBook 6 is the stepchild of the first hexad of the Annals, little studied and even less appreciated, perhaps because of the large lacuna which breaks the continuity of the narrative after book 4, perhaps because of its allegedly static and monotonous content summarized thus by Syme: “The concluding book of the hexad carries a dreary epilogue down to the (...) extinction of the old emperor, with many prosecutions and deaths, with little extraneous or antiquarian matter for variegation.” 1 But let us consider here the placement and function of one minor episode in book 6, the alleged appearance of the Phoenix in Egypt.Paulo Fabio L. Vitellio consulibus post longum saeculorum ambitum avis phoenix in Aegyptum venit praebuitque materiem doctissimis indigenarum et Graecorum multa super eo miraculo disserendi. de quibus congruunt et plura ambigua, sed cognitu non absurda promere libet. sacrum Soli id animal, et ore ac distinctu pinnarum a ceteris avibus diversum consentiunt qui formam eius effin{x}ere; de numero annorum varia traduntur. maxime vulgatum quingentorum spatium; sunt qui adseverent mille quadringentos sexaginta unum interici, prioresque alites Sesoside primum, post Amaside dominantibus, dein Ptolemaeo, qui ex Macedonibus tertius regnavit, in civitatem, cui Heliopolis nomen, advolavisse, multo ceterarum volucrum comitatu novam faciem mirantium. sed antiquitas quidem obscura: inter Ptolemaeum ac Tiberium minus ducenti quinquaginta anni fuerunt. unde nonnulli falsum hunc phoenicem neque Arabum e terris credidere, nihilque usurpavisse ex his, quae vetus memoria firmavit. confecto quippe annorum numero, ubi mors propinquet, suis in terris struere nidum eique vim genitalem adfundere, ex qua fetum oriri: et primam adulto curam sepeliendi patris, neque id temere, sed sublato murrae pondere temptatoque per longum iter, ubi par oneri, par meatui sit, subire patrium corpus inque Solis aram perferre atque adolere. haec incerta et [End Page 429] fabulosis aucta: ceterum aspici aliquando in Aegypto eam volucrem non ambigitur. 2(Ann. 6.28)Previous scholarly discussion of this episode has not answered two basic questions: why the historian has placed it in 34 C.E., when Pliny the Elder (NH 10.2) and Dio (58.27.1) date it to 36, and why Tacitus devotes a whole chapter to what may have been a non-event, since he suggests that there was no genuine appearance of the bird in Tiberius’ time. These questions lead inevitably to a discussion of the role of this episode in the structure of book 6 and its relationship to the book’s predominant themes. I propose that Tacitus has placed the Phoenix in the year 34 to highlight two important concerns in book 6: the destruction of the nobility, and the unnatural cruelty of Tiberius and his heir, Gaius.Let us first address the question of Tacitus’ source or sources. Hahn may well be right that the source was an antiquarian work like that of Pliny the Elder, though not Pliny himself (praebuitque materiem doctissimis indigenarum et Graecorum multa super eo miraculo disserendi, Ann. 6.28.1). However, because Dio also reports the Phoenix, Hahn believed that it was already noted by the annalistic tradition when it reached Tacitus. Townend believed that Tacitus would not deliberately shift the Phoenix if he had found it clearly dated in his main annalistic source. Rather, the historian discovered this information, without any precise indication of the year, in a semihistorical work by Tiberius Balbillus, a former prefect of Egypt and probably the son of Thrasyllus, Tiberius’ astrologer. Then Tacitus simply inserted it at the first convenient place. We know from Pliny that Claudius displayed a Phoenix at Rome as part of his Secular Games, though no one believed it genuine (NH 10.2.5). So it is also possible that Tacitus, a member of the quindecimviri sacris faciundis in 88 C.E., when they were in charge of Domitian’s Secular Games (Ann. 11.11.1), might have had access, in the records of his priestly college, to a discussion of the possible link between the Egyptian Great Year and the Roman saeculum. This would have led him to conclude that the report of the Phoenix of the last years of Tiberius’ reign could not have been genuine, and it... (shrink)

Electrical resistivity and ac-calorimetric measurements reveal a complex magnetic phase diagram for single crystals of the ferromagnetic Kondo-lattice compound CeAgSb2 at high pressures up to 80 kbar. The ferromagnetic order at TC = 9.6 K at ambient pressure is completely suppressed at a critical pressure PC = 35 kbar. Another magnetic transition, possibly antiferromagnetic, found above 27 kbar, attains a maximum value TN 6 K at 44 kbar and then appears to be completely suppressed by 50 kbar. Thermodynamic and transport (...) measurements in the ferromagnetic state indicate an energy gap Δ 30 K in the spin-wave excitation spectrum at ambient pressure which decreases to Δ 10 K at P = 30 kbar. No superconductivity is observed at ambient pressure above T 0.1 K, under applied pressure in the ferromagnetic state (P = 28.5 kbar), nor in the antiferromagnetic state (P = 33 − 46 kbar) above 0.3 K. © 2003 The American Physical Society. (shrink)

In [3] F. P. Ramsey proved as a theorem of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (ZF) with the Axiom of Choice (AC) the following result:(1) Theorem. Let A be an infinite class. For each integer n and partition {X, Y} of the size n subsets of A, there exists an infinite subclass of A all of whose size n subsets are contained in only one of X or Y.

Sprint interval training is characterized by intensity of “all-out” effort and superior time-efficiency compared to traditional moderate-intensity continuous training and has been proposed as one viable solution to address the commonly reported barrier of lack of time for physical activity. While substantial physiological benefits of participation in SIT have been well-documented, the psychological responses to SIT are less clear. No systematic review has been conducted thus far to respond to the assumption that its supramaximal intensity will induce adverse feelings. Therefore, (...) the aim of the present study was to synthesize studies analyzing affective and enjoyment responses to SIT and to compare the responses to SIT with MICT and other high intensity interval training protocols with lower intensities. After searching relevant databases up until 22nd March 2021, twenty-five studies meeting the inclusion criteria were included in the present review. Random effect meta-analysis using the pooled data demonstrated that SIT induced similar post-exercise affective valences during the training compared to MICT and HIIT, but lower affective valences immediately post-exercise compared to MICT. Moreover, affective responses during SIT decreased to negative valences according to the results from most included studies, while low-volume SIT protocols with shorter sprint duration and repetitions induced more positive affective responses. Level of enjoyment after SIT were positive and were comparable to MICT or HIIT. Overall, the results from the existing literature indicate that SIT might cause unpleasant feelings during the training and be perceived less pleasurable than MICT immediately post training but could be a comparably enjoyable modality for healthy individuals in relation to MICT or HIIT, despite its supramaximal intensity. Low-volume SIT may be a realistic option for individuals seeking a time-efficient workout with comparable affective responses to MICT or HIIT.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO], Identifier [CRD42021284898]. (shrink)

Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal‐producing and signal‐consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny’s proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes yields the wrong content. Finally, I outline an alternative view, according to which consumers alone are responsible for conferring (...) representational status and determining content. I suggest that consumer‐based teleosemantics reconstruct the content of both cooperative and noncooperative signals and explain how a given trait can mean different things to different consumers. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Starting from a historical-juridical study of A. M. de Aldama on the origin and evolution of the reference to the teaching of Christian doctrine to pueri contained in the formula of final vows of all priests in the Society of Jesus, the author investigates the meaning of this ministry and its importance today. In an analytic section, the article traces the historical development of the ministry of education in Christian doctrine to pueri and rudes in the experience of Ignatius and (...) his first companions and in the foundational texts. The theme is treated above all in the light of some questions brought up by the historical data of the past and present. In conclusion the author seeks to reply synthetically to the questions, by showing some essential elements in the significance of the ministry of teaching Christian doctrine to children for an apostle in today's world. (shrink)

Certain sections ofJosiah Willard Gibbs's thermodynamics papers might be applicable to biological equilibrium and growth, normal or abnormal.Gibbs added terms⌆ Μ i dm i to the differential of the internal energy dε=tdη−pdΝ, where μi=δεδmi is the potential of substancem i , to provide for chemical as well as thermal and mechanical equilibrium. In this article a further generalization is suggested, to include biological equilibrium by adding to de terms of the form GdN, the variableN being the number of cells, where (...) G=δεδN is a “growth potential” that measures exactly the resistance toward spontaneous growth. The functionG, likeΜ i is intensive in nature except for a conversion factor dMdN ,M=⌆m i , affording possible insight into why incipient abnormal growth is often independent of the number of cells. Useful applications might follow from identities between δGδη,δGδv , or δGδmi and δtδN,−δpδN or δμiδN respectively. The following new function is studied, ζ¯=ζ−GN , a natural generalization of theGibbs free energy function ζ, the possibility of measuring it electrically, and comparison of its role with that of ζ for the possible experimental determination ofG. Gibbs's necessary and sufficient conditions for heterogeneous equilibrium ofn components inm phases are generalized and also modified to include broader restraining conditions like ∑mi=1δNj⩾o ,j=1,f,n, the > being characteristic of only living cellular phases. Careful appraisal of the term “biological stability” is followed by new criteria for stability, instability, and limits of stability, in terms of derivatives ofG, with possible medical applications. Three different sections of Gibbs's works tend to indicate that, for a biological phase, lower pressure usually increases its stability. The equation p′′−p′=σ , where σ=surface tension,p′, p′ = pressures,r, r′=radii of curvature, is applied to possible control of tissue growth at interfaces. Methods of altering the equilibrum between three phasesA, B, C by varying the interfacial tensionsσ AB ,σ BC ,σ AC , using relations like AB <σ AC + BC for stability of theA, B interface, suggest different means for shifting biological equilibrium between normal and abnormal cells through the introduction of new third phases at the interface. Various devices are mentioned for possible control of growth through proper channeling of surface or other equivalent forms of energy. (shrink)

It is proposed that the physical structure of an observer in quantum mechanics is constituted by a pattern of elementary localized switching events. A key preliminary step in giving mathematical expression to this proposal is the introduction of an equivalence relation on sequences of spacetime sets which relates a sequence to any other sequence to which it can be deformed without change of causal arrangement. This allows an individual observer to be associated with a finite structure. The identification of suitable (...) switching events in the human brain is discussed. A definition is given for the sets of sequences of quantum states which such an observer could occupy. Finally, by providing an a priori probability for such sets, the definitions are incorporated into a complete mathematical framework for a many-worlds interpretation. At a less ambitious level, the paper can be read as an exploration of some of the technical and conceptual difficulties involved in constructing such a framework. (shrink)

Two Fraenkel-Mostowski models are constructed in which the Boolean Prime Ideal Theorem is true. In both models, AC for countable sets is true, but AC for sets of cardinality 2math image and the 2m = m principle are both false. The Principle of Dependent Choices is true in the first model, but false in the second.

This essay is drawn up to represent Francisco Suárez's system of laws. The civil law is mainly founded on the legislator's will, but this law must also be fair. The law of nations is divided into a...

O presente artigo busca traçar um estudo político-filosófico e se dedica a articular as nuances do conceito arendtiano de ação, sobre o entendimento do agir humano dentro do espaço público. Observar as nuances e a imprevisibilidade pela qual a ação humana é expressa frente à convivência entre iguais e diferentes no espaço público é enxergar a forma com a qual as singularidades humanas e o fenômeno da revelação das identidades se tornam evidentes. Dessa maneira, o objetivo geral do presente trabalho (...) se perfaz em analisar como a dimensão política do conceito arendtiano de ação está ligada à busca da liberdade do indivíduo no espaço público. Dessa forma, busca-se entender as interações interpessoais em meio a pluralidade humana e a procura pela liberdade frente ao mundo das aparências. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS people will in fact he causally influenced to do B as well. The former is a philosophical issue and the latter is an empirical one. There are many interesting issues in these last three chapters. But the most important planks in Rachels's radical view are his distinction between biological and biographical life and his Bare Difference argument against the active killing/passive letting die distinotion. This hook contains (...) a number of very important moral issues which are rich· ly discussed. But his case against the rtraditional view must ultimately he judged inadequarte. Rachels himself admits that until now the traditional view has been the only one that is sufficiently worked out in a sophisticated and satisfactory way. In my opinion, Rachels's contribution to the discussion has not changed that situartion. J.P. MORELAND Lynchburg, Virginia Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and the Hermeneutic Project. By JoHN D. CAPUTO. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987. Pp. 319. Professor Caputo's impressive book, which is composed of an introduction and three parts, is a closely reasoned, scholarly explanation and defense of what its author calls radical hermeneutics. In his Jn. troduction, which he entitles "Restoring Life rto Its Original Difficulty," Caputo presents what he takes to be the problem of trying l:o make sense of contemporary experience, given the thought developments of the last two centuries. Central to Caputo's project is his reading of traditional metaphysics as a betrayal of the human experi· ence of the flux. He claims that, though metaphysics makes a show of beginning with questions, it quickly forecloses those questions as soon as things begin to look uncertain. In Being and Time Heidegger tried to restore the original difficulty of Being that metaphysics had swept under the rug. Viewing Kierkegaard in his pseudonymous masks, such as the disguise of Contantin Constantius, as involved in making life difficult rather than easy, Capuito links the Danish existentialist's con· cerns to Heidegger's. Caputo argues that radical hermeneutics is for the hardy and not for those who seek some way out of the flux. Meta· physics has illegiitimartely claimed some transcendental high ground ac· cording to Caputo, hut radical hermeneutics will have none of that ap· parently consoling hut ultimately unjustifiable comfort. Rather, her· BOOK REVIEWS meneutics wants to describe the difficulrty we are in and rather than rise above the flux " gets up the nerve to stay with it " (p. 3). Caputo's book is evidence of the author's attempt to "get up the nerve to stay with it " and though difficult reading the hook is nonetheless exciting. Caputo argues Philosophy is scandalized by motion and thus tries either to exclude movement outright from real being (Platonism) or more subversively, to portray itself as a friend of movement and thus to lure it into the philosophical house of logical categories (Hegelianism). Kierkegaard objects to the mummifying work of philosophy, not because he thinks that eternity-the sphere of that which lies outside of time and movement -is an illusion, that the real world is a myth (Fabel), as does Nietzsche, but because he thinks that philosophy makes things too easy for itself. It is ready to sneak out the back door of existence as soon as life begins. It does not have the courage for the flux, for the hard work of winning eternity in time, of pushing forward existentially for the prize which lies ahead. It is not eternity as such (Nietzsche's 'real world') to which he objects but philosophy's effete manner of seeking it. He takes the side of becoming against Being, of existence against thought, of existential 'interest' against metaphysics. For it is on the basis of interest that philosophy founders, that metaphysics comes to grief (pp. 11-12). Impressed with :the radicalization which hermeneutics provides, Caputo sees the protohistory of hermeneutics in thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Husserl, Nietzsche, Meister Eckhart, the late Heidegger and even Derrida, who is a critic of hermeneutics. In Part One Caputo discusses Kierkegaardian repetition and Husserlian conS. (shrink)

The American Urological Association (AUA) and American College of Surgeons (ACS) codes of professionalism require surgeons to disclose the specific roles and responsibilities of trainees to patients during the informed consent process. The objective of this study is to analyze how these requirements are met by urology training programs. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed to the program directors (PDs) of the 143 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education urology residency programs in the United States in 2021. Information was collected (...) regarding program demographics, aspects of the program’s consent process, and the disclosure to patients of the role and participation of residents in their surgery. There were 49 responses to the survey (34.3% response rate). Nearly 70 percent of PDs reported that attending physicians lead the consent process. The topics covered during consent discussion include possible complications (25%), expected recovery time (23%), length of the surgery (22%), the people involved (18%), and their specific roles (7%). Many PDs do not explicitly discuss trainee involvement (48.8%) or when a resident is to perform the majority of the case (87.8%). The majority of PDs (78.8%) communicate medical student involvement, but 73.2 percent reported having a patient decline participation of a trainee after describing their role. Despite the AUA and ACS codes of professionalism, many urologists do not disclose resident involvement in surgery to patients. Further discussions are needed to explore how to better balance resident education and patient autonomy. (shrink)